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Denny Morrison captured Canada’s 10th medal of the Sochi Games, a silver in speedskating, but the golden glow on Wednesday belongs to teammate Gilmore Junio.

Junio qualified for the race, then gave up his spot to Morrison, considered Canada’ best medal hope. And it worked, even though it meant Junio never got to race.

Morrison made sure to thank Happy Gilmore, as he calls himself on Twitter, for making it all happen.

Canada’s double-digit medals break down to four gold, four silver and two bronze, tied with the Netherlands. Germany leads the gold race with six but Norway has the most hardware: 12 medals (four gold, three silver, five bronze).

Two goals by birthday girl Meghan Agosta-Marciano lifted Canada to a 3-2 win in its grudge match against the USA in hockey. It’s still the preliminaries but could prefigure the final.

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Here’s what else happened in Sochi today:

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Pairs free skating

Two of the three Canadian couples finished in the top 10 despite the flawless onslaught of the world champion Russians and their German rivals. Gold and silver for Russia, bronze for Germany.

Paige Lawrence and Rudi Swiegers skated second. skate ninth and Kirsten Moore-Towers and Dylan Moscovitch skated to the best Canadian finish of 5th. Meagan Duhamel and Eric Radford were behind them in seventh and Paige Lawrence and Rudi Swiegers placed 14th.

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Alpine skiing

A first as Slovenia and Switzerland tied for gold in women’s downhill skiing, Tina Maze of Slovenia and Dominique Gisin of Switzerland both finished at exactly 1:41.57. Gisin’s Swiss teammate Lara Gut was a tenth of a second behind for the bronze.

The most recent tie in Olympic skiing history was in 1998 when Switzerland and Austria shared silver, but twin golds are a first for alpine skiing.

Canada’s Larisa Yurkiw placed 20th with a time of 1:43.46, but the 25-year-old from Owen Sound, Ont., is still inspiring fans in Sochi. A stranger on a plane handed her father $100 because he read her story in the Star. Yurkiw was dropped from the Canadian Alpine Ski Team after a 2009 knee injury that took three years to rehabilitate. Skiiing as an independent, she qualified for Team Canada again during the World Cup season, but raised $150,000 on her own to travel to Sochi.

The sport that inspired a Canadian viral video about gay rights has also produced the best Canadian men’s finish in the sport ever.

Tristan Walker and Justin Snith did Team Canada proud by placing fourth against the powerhouse Germans and Austrians. Latvia took bronze.

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Men’s curling

The Norwegian men’s team didn’t disappoint Wednesday morning. The men wore knickerbockers in a houndstooth pattern with plaid caps in co-ordinated red and blue. As the moderator commented on the pants’ Facebook fan page — “PANTastic!”

Canada redeemed itself with a 6-2 win over Russia in session five of the round robin. Germany lost 6-7 to China, Britain beat Switzerland 3-2 and Denmark defeated Sweden 6-4.

The Norwegians won against German 8-3, China won out over Switzerland 5-4 and the U.S. beat Denmark 9-5, ending their losing streak, in session four very early Wednesday. There are 10 hours of round robin curling every day at Sochi.

Although half pipe snowboarding looks simple enough, it has a complex judging system on a points scale out of 100. Read a breakdown here : who knew a heavy hand check — or a heavy butt check — could warrant a 25-point deduction?

Canada didn’t qualify for today’s final.

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Men’s hockey

Not that anyone follows men’s hockey during the Olympics, but it was announced Wednesday morning that Carey Price would start in goal during the men’s opener Thursday against Norway, with Canucks’ goalie Roberto Luongo in net during the second game against Austria on Friday.

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